The next great crisis for the United States, at least as David Boies of Boies, Schiller & Flexner sees it, is unfunded pension liability for city and state governments. “This is a $5 trillion issue,” Boies told me in a phone interview Wednesday. “Unless we solve this problem, everyone is in jeopardy — cities and states, those who depend on their services, even employees of cities and states.” Boies predicts an unprecedented wave of government bankruptcies if elected officials don’t take action.

Boies is also putting his money where his mouth is. On Wednesday, he and Boies Schiller associate Julia Hamilton moved for admission to the state courts of Rhode Island, where police, firefighters, teachers and thousands of other state and local employees and retirees are challenging sweeping pension overhaul legislation passed last November. Boies and Hamilton will be advising the state officials named as defendants in five Rhode Island Superior Court suits asserting that the 2011 law — which, among other things, suspended cost-of-living adjustments, raised the retirement age and shrunk the defined benefit component of pensions — violates the contract, takings and due process clauses of the Rhode Island constitution.

Boies has agreed to work for the state for the whopping fee of $50 an hour.

With anticipation swirling about a possible Democratic primary clash between Gina Raimondo and Angel Taveras in the 2014 governor’s race, the only announced candidate — former auditor general Ernest Almonte – says he’s in the campaign for good.

(PROVIDENCE, RI) State treasurer Gina Raimondo has written letters to House Speaker Gordon Fox and Senate President Teresa Paiva Weed expressing strong support for the marriage equality bill now in the legislative pipeline.

The letters read in part: “Marrying my husband Andy 11 years ago was the best decision of my life and we have two beautiful children together. Every Rhode Islander who wants to be in a loving and committed marriage should have the same rights as we do.”

Governor Lincoln Chafee says the uncertainty and cost of litigating a union challenge to last year’s landmark pension overhaul justify efforts to seek a settlement.

In a telephone interview from Washington, DC, where he’s attending a National Governors Association meeting, Chafee dismissed concerns that a settlement would dilute the pension overhaul to such an extent that it would hurt Rhode Island’s fiscal condition.